Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is US Representative for New York's 14th District, a strong progressive voice and advocate of progressive policies, and a strong presence in social media. Her celebrity is surprisingly recent, coming after her primary victory over a long-time incumbent in the middle of 2018. She is often known by her initials, AOC, and she has nicknames Sandy and Alex. As AOC, she joins FDR, JFK, RFK, LBJ, and MLK. Biography Early Life AOC was born on October 13, 1989, in the Bronx borough in New York City, to Sergio Ocasio-Roman, son of two Puerto Rican immigrants, and Bianca Cortez, a Puerto Rican immigrant. She has a younger brother, Gabriel. The Bronx did not have very good schools back then, so AOC's family bought a small house in Yorktown Heights, in Westchester County north of NYC, with much nicer schools. Sergio was an architect in the Bronx and Bianca drove buses and cleaned houses. AOC learned very early that one's zip code often determines one's destiny. In high school, AOC did a science project on testing the usefulness of antioxidants in counteracting oxidative stress, a source of some aging effects and some diseases. She fed some of them to some nematodes, and some of them lived nearly twice as long. She got a second-place award, and when she presented her findings, she seemed to some people almost like some 30-year-old businesswoman rather than a 17-year-old high-school girl.Intel ISEF alumna headed to Capitol Hill | Society for Science & the Public Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Emerges as a Political Star - The New York Times Around 2000, Lincoln Laboratories named an asteroid after her.23238 Ocasio-Cortez - a main-belt asteroid about 2.5 AU from the Sun and roughly the size of the South Bronx. AOC's first employment was around then, in an Irish pub.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Learned Her Most Important Lessons from Restaurants | Bon Appétit Alexandria O'Casio? AOC's first politics-like experience was also around then, in the National Hispanic Institute's Lorenzo de Zavala (LDZ) Youth Legislative Session over 8 days. One runs for various offices and helps decide what to do about various issues. She ran for several offices, and despite never winning, she was voted Most Promising Female because of her persistence.NHI's Julio Cotto featured on MSNBC's Headliners - NHI Magazine College and Bartending AOC went to Boston University, first studying biochemistry in the hope of becoming a medical doctor. But she decided that that would take too long, so she changed her major to economics and international relations, so she could make a quicker impact on policy. She spent a semester doing maternal-health work in Niger in West Africa, and she caught malaria there. She had further evidence of one's zip code determining one's destiny. Sergio became gravely ill with cancer, and she went to visit him. "Make me proud", he told her. He died soon after. This was followed by a lot of costly legal wrangling over the house. Her response at the time was to put a lot of effort into her studies, and she eventually graduated cum laude ("with praise" in Latin). At BU, AOC was involved with the Howard Thurman Center for Common GroundStudent Ambassadors | Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground, Class of 2011 there, blogging and being involved in intellectual discussions. She met fellow student Riley Roberts there, and he eventually became her boyfriend. She was apparently well-liked there, and many people who knew her would gush about her. She was "awesome", "the smartest person" that some people knew, "tack sharp", "warm", empathetic, liking to debate but also a good listener, concerned about social justice, and an "outstanding" student.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s friends in Boston recall her drive and dedication - The Boston Globe She blogged and appeared in some videos: * Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Remarks at 2011 Boston University Martin Luther King Jr., Celebration - YouTube where she discussed greatness * Phoenix - Lisztomania - Boston University Brat Pack Mashup - YouTube her dance video After BU, she went back to the Bronx, and she started Brook Avenue Press - YouTube, for making children's books that feature places like the Bronx in a positive light. She also got involved in a startup called GAGEis as its "Lead Educational Strategist".Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez » Student Activities Office | Boston University Both endeavors flopped, leaving very little evidence of their former existence. She was a tutor and an Educational Director for the National Hispanic Institute for some time.Home - NHI Magazine has several articles on her NHI-related activities But these endeavors did not make her enough money to cover the house payments, and she became a waitress and a bartender, notably at Flats Fix Taqueria in Manhattan. She had the unpleasant experience of the restaurant manager rating her on hotness alongside her fellow waitresses. She stomped out and she returned only after that manager promised to never do it again.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quit bar job over sexist manager AOC was liked by most of her fellow waitresses, though one of them claimed that after one night's haul of $560 in tips, AOC only gave her $50. She complained to the manager, and she got $100.Ex co-worker no fan of Democrat darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez She came to feel like a failure, someone with great potential who had failed to live up to it. Here she was, with abundantly demonstrated talent, but someone who was stuck in a lower-middle-class dead-end job. Bernie Sanders and Standing Rock AOC went to a career counselor, and she got some helpful advice: think in terms of directions, not big goals.An Advice Session With Megan Hellerer, AOC’s Career Coach But what? She went to a Black Lives Matter rally, and then she became a campaigner for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Presidential race. She credits BS for demonstrating the feasibility of small-donation financing, and for asserting that healthcare, housing, and the like are human rights, something that we have a right to.Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Endorses Bernie Sanders for President - YouTube BS did not win, but some of his campaigners did not give up. They decided that even the best President would be nothing without a good Congress, something abundantly demonstrated by the Republicans' obstructionism over President Obama's presidency. They created a Political Action Committee called Brand New Congress, and BNC initially planned to have some 400 candidates, running as both Democrats and Republicans, as appropriate for their districts. BNC requested nominations, and it received some 1,100 of them, one of them from Gabriel, AOC's brother. Then Donald Trump won the election, defeating Hillary Clinton. AOC's response was to write about it that it was more a symptom than a disease, a symptom of something deeper. She also found out about a protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). It was originally routed near Bismarck, North Dakota, but after objections that it risks contaminating the town's water supplies, it was rerouted a bit southward, to just north of Standing Rock Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Something that provoked a protest from the reservation. She found out that the protesters wanted supplies, and she and two friends went on a road trip to there in a borrowed Subaru. Along the way, they stopped off in Flint, Michigan, about its infamously contaminated water supply. When they got there, they found that the pipeline company's guards were rather militarized, with military-grade rifles. They also found that the protesters were firmly committed to nonviolent activism, in the tradition of one of AOC's heroes, MLK. She was deeply impressed by their protests. Primary Campaign When she returned home, AOC got a phone call from BNC. She was accepted, one of 30 candidates. One would run as a Republican, one as an Independent, and all the rest, including her, as Democrats. BNC gave her and the other candidates some instruction in how to run for office, and she returned to the Bronx. She looked around, and she noticed that in the 14th District, Joe Crowley had been in office for 10 terms, nearly 20 years, and that his last primary challenge was nearly 14 years ago. He also lived full-time in Virginia and he sent his children to school there. He was a big fundraiser and power broker, nicknamed the "King of Queens", and considered the 4th most powerful Democrat and likely successor of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. She started her campaign in May 2017, and it was slow at first. At her workplace, she kept a Trader Joe's shopping back with a clipboard and a change of clothes, and when she went off work, she changed clothes, went to the Bronx, and canvassed, going door to door with her campaigning. AOC also got into using social media for campaigning, notably Facebook and Twitter. Around then, filmmaker Rachel Lears started documenting her run, along with the runs of Cori Bush of Missouri, Paula Swearengin of West Virginia, and Amy Vilela of Nevada. Early in 2018, they had to collect 1250 signatures to get on the ballot. Because many of them would likely be invalidated, AOC decided on collecting 10,000 signatures. She and her campaigners got a little over 5,000 signatures - more than enough. They were accepted and she got on the ballot. AOC made a campaign video, The Courage to Change, with Spanish translation El Valor para Cambiar. It profiles her and starts with "Women like me aren't supposed to run for office." It shows her in action, going door to door and meeting people, putting on makeup, fixing her hair, and changing shoes. She famously wore holes in running shoes,Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Campaign Shoes to Join Museum Exhibition | WNEP.com and she would exchange them for high-heeled shoes. She described costs going up without incomes rising to match, and how her opponent was a candidate of Big Money. In June, AOC debated JC, or at least tried to. The first time, she was the only one to show up, the second time, JC did show up,Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Joe Crowley Debate June 15th, 2018 - YouTube and the third time, JC sent NYC Councilmember Annabel Palma,Crowley sends "worst NYC lawmaker" to debate in his place | CSNY "a woman with slight resemblance to me", as AOC commented.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "In a bizarre twist, Rep. Crowley sent a woman with slight resemblance to me as his official surrogate to last night’s debate. @repjoecrowley’s surrogate said he is in full support of Trump’s embassy change in Israel last month (where 60 people died). The community was in shock. https://t.co/LvNj0rlhFw" / Twitter The New York Times editorialized "Mr. Crowley’s constituents might well now wonder whether he intends, if re-elected, to have Ms. Palma make his floor speeches and cast his votes as well. ... But his seat is not his entitlement. He’d better hope that voters don’t react to his snubs by sending someone else to do the job."Opinion | If You Want to Be Speaker, Mr. Crowley, Don’t Take Voters for Granted - The New York Times Beginning of Fame Election Day was June 26, and AOC won over JC by 57% - 42%. When she discovered that result, she was very surprised, and she congratulated her campaigners on all the work that they did. Much of that success was from her seeking out new voters, rather than presumably likely ones. Having a bold, progressive platform also gave many voters reason to vote for her. That was the beginning of her fame, and she got profiled and interviewed in a lot of magazines and news outlets. Right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro proposed a debate with her, and she refused, calling it as welcome as catcalling. The right wing turned her into yet another great liberal ogre, like what they did to William Jefferson Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Senator Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Michelle Obama. But she did something that the others were reluctant to do: fight back. When Amy Vilela lost, AOC consoled her by telling her that for one to win, a hundred have to run. Cori Bush and Paula Swearengin also lost. But in Massachusetts, Boston councilwoman Ayanna Pressley defeated 10-term incumbent Mike Capuano in an AOC-ish victory. AOC spoke at several others' campaign rallies, going to Wichita Kansas, Los Angeles, and Hawaii. Her Republican opponent was Anthony Pappas, someone whose main issue was some divorce issue. Joe Crowley was still in the race as the Working Families Party's candidate, because he could not be removed from it very easily. Not surprisingly, the WFP endorsed AOC. Into Congress AOC won 78%, Anthony Pass 15%, and Joe Crowley 7%, and she became the youngest woman to be elected to the House. Her predecessors include Elise Stefanik in 2014 and Elizabeth Holtzman in 1972. Her first action there was very unorthodox. Some "Sunrise Movement" climate-change activists did a sit-in in Nancy Pelosi's office, and AOC joined them. She also pledged to support NP for speaker if NP was the most progressive candidate for that office. She Instagrammed her getting started in Congress, something she called "Congress Camp", and something she compared to college orientation. She got an ID card and a "swag bag" containing a highly-secure smartphone and tablet computer. She also listened in to corporate lobbyists making their presentations and she noticed the lack of labor-union representatives and the like. She also broadcast the lottery for assigning offices, and she noted a sort of "Congress handbook" for how to work in Congress. Will one be an activist or a policy wonk or a leader? First Year It was tumultuous, to put it mildly. AOC's first floor speech was during the government shutdown in January. She talked about how it hurt a lot of workers, like a worker that she highlighted in her speech. The next month, she distinguished herself in committee hearings. She did a "Corruption Game", where she asked the witnesses what corruption that one can get away with. Like accept money from secretly-financed political action committees and make legislation that affects companies that one owns stock in. In her questioning of Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen, she did what only some of his other questioners did, spend her time asking questions to get information rather than deliver speeches, and ask followup questions as appropriate, like who might know if he didn't. She discovered that Trump would raise the value of some property for insurance purposes and lower its value for tax purposes, a clear case of fraud. Around then, she also introduced her first legislation, and so far her most successful legislation, her Green New Deal resolution. It recommends a massive program of installing renewable-energy generation, upgrading buildings, "regenerative agriculture" to capture carbon, and the like. Though nearly half of the House Democrats have signed on, it has been less successful in the Senate. Mitch McConnell forced a vote on it without any hearings on it, and the Senate Democrats boycotted that vote. She described some people as not thinking that they'll have much of a future because it seems like the world will end in 12 years. She later called that statement "dry humor" that one would need "the social intelligence of a sea sponge" to take literally. She would later respond to questions of its cost by saying that the costs of not doing anything about climate change are much greater, like the costs of doing something about drowned coastal cities. In May, she called ICE's detention facilities "concentration camps", something which provoked a lot of controversy. In June, she and some other Congresspeople did a tour of ICE's border-detention facilities, showing their horrible overcrowded conditions. Lots of family separations and some inmates described being forced to drink from toilets. During this time, AOC and three Congresswomen friends, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar, collectively "The Squad", had refused to support a funding bill for the facilities that they considered too much of a blank check for the Administration, and in July, Nancy Pelosi ridiculed them as being "only four votes" and that "All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world." Then Trump got involved, saying that the Squad members ought to go back to the horrible countries that they came from, and not return until they have fixed their homelands. The four Squad members responded in a press conference, with AOC stating that "We don't leave the things that we love, and when we love this country, what that means is that we propose the solutions to fix it," and that Trump "does not know how to defend his policies, so what he does is attack us personally, and that is what this is all about." She soon met with NP, and NP said about it that AOC was "a very gracious Congresswoman" and that every family has disagreements. She even showed off a picture of the two looking very friendly with each other. August was a Congressional recess, and AOC took a road trip to Kings Canyon National Park with its giant redwood trees. She also visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium and had fun with the penguins there. On the way, she did a snarky swipe at the Electoral College, and she followed up by calling it a "scam" that is slanted toward white people at the expense of others -- and one that disenfranchises rural people in big-city states. When she returned home, she reiterated her claims, calling the EC "bogus" and a form of affirmative action. Why its beneficiaries and not blacks or Indian-reservation inhabitants? In September, AOC unveiled her "Just Society" package of bills, about poverty, housing, ex-con and immigrant Federal-benefit eligibility, employer worker-friendliness, and ratification of a UN covenant on rights. In October, AOC visited Copenhagen in Denmark and spoke before the C40 Mayors Conference. She called her dreams of motherhood "bittersweet" because of the sort of world that they are likely to grow up in. She also described how bike-friendly she found Copenhagen to be, much better than NYC. A week later, she was a guest at a Bernie Sanders rally in Queens, and early in November, she was a guest at some BS rallies in Iowa. In those rallies, she described why she endorsed BS for President. Political Positions AOC calls herself a democratic socialist, in line with the Democratic Socialists of America. She defines socialism as a system which respects workers' interests and gives them dignity. She also defines capitalism as a system where obtaining profit is central and it overrides all other considerations. Platform From her 2018 campaign site: * Medicare For All * Housing As a Human Right * A Peace Economy * A Federal Jobs Guarantee * Gun control / Assault Weapons Ban * Criminal Justice Reform, End Private Prisons * Immigration Justice / Abolish ICE * Solidarity with Puerto Rico * Mobilizing Against Climate Change * Clean Campaign Finance * Higher Education / Trade School for All * Women's Rights * Support LGBTQIA+ * Support Seniors * Curb Wall Street Gambling: Restore Glass Steagall Congressional Actions Bills: * HR 2930 - Outlawing excessive interest rates on loans * HR 3685 - Allowing ex-cons to use public housing * HR 5069 - Redefining the poverty line (in her Just Society package) * HR 5070 - Letting ex-cons have all Federal benefits (Just Society) * HR 5071 - Making Federal-benefit eligibility independent of immigration status (Just Society) * HR 5072 - Rent control and landlord-tenant arbitration (Just Society) * HR 5073 - Evaluating Federal contractors with a worker-friendliness score (Just Society) * HR 5185 - Green New Deal for public housing Resolutions: * HRes 109 - Green New Deal * HRes 666 - Ratifying the United Nations Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Just Society) Also several amendments and cosponsorship of several bills and resolutions Assessment AOC's success and fame are likely due to a combination of several factors: * Charisma * Friendly, relatable personality * "Ms. Smith Goes to Washington" view of government * A bold, progressive platform * Willingness to seek out new voters External Links * AOC's 2018 campaign site * Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez | Representing the 14th District of New York * Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez | Congress.gov | Library of Congress * Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - Wikipedia * Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - Wikiquote - quotations of AOC * Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) / Twitter * Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@RepAOC) / Twitter * Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@ocasio2018) • Instagram photos and videos * Rep. Ocasio-Cortez (@repocasiocortez) • Instagram photos and videos References Category:US Politics Category:Progressivism